Day 13 - Virginia - Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue

More often than not, I sit staring at the computer, wondering what to say.

I wonder how to properly convey this experience. Because everyday, Tim and I have a very different experience from the proceeding day, and most often a very different experience from each other. Sure, we can sum it up in over arching generalities (volunteer work is rewarding) and there is some semblance of a routine – we go to bed at the same time every night and get up around the same time every morning. But our waking hours are strikingly different, filled with sundry activities and punctuated with different faces. We stay with different people in each state, we work with different people in each state, and we perform different service in each state. Plus, we have a different favorite memory from each state. Tim has his and I have mine.

For instance, in Virginia, Tim got to ride a horse for the first time (qualifying as his favorite memory for that state). Hi-ho, Silver! Away!

Eh, don’t worry about him - Tim, I mean - the horse, Thunder, was trained to do that. He only performed his rear on command. He wasn’t one of the rescue horses, but one of Pat’s personal horses that she was kind enough to let us ride as a treat after we spent the day with Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue.

Before we got to the riding, we worked. And worked hard. We fed grain, then roughage, then alfalfa that had been rolled in tight pin wheels. Tim used the tractor to spear and move the massive bales. Hoisting them high in the air, positioning them over the fencing and then shaking the cart slightly, the bales crashed down, spinning, rolling and unraveling. Horses meandered slowly over and began to eat along the 70-foot path of compact green shoots.

In total, Pat and her husband, Jason, house 20 to 30 horses. Before the recession, they could house 50 at any given time, but decreased donations have limited the amount of horses they can reasonably feed and vet. A lifelong horsewoman, Pat established RVHR after another horse rescue, at which she volunteered, shut down. Now, RVHR takes in horses with a history of starvation, neglect, abuse, and/or abandonment.

In addition to housing the animals at her facility, Pat has built a network of volunteer foster homes, many of which have adopted horses from RVHR. When describing the drive behind the organization and those who volunteer there, one of the many volunteers who helped out that day offered, “We love these horses. We love every hair on them.”

We organized donated blankets and sheets, cleaned tack, sorted brushes and curry combs. We even mucked out paddocks and sheds, preparing the area for a fresh coat of shavings. It was intensely physical work, the kind that urges you to peel of your heavy outermost layer, tie it around your waist, and lean on your rake while exhaling in a slow whistle “Wheeeeew. Hot enough out here for you?” It wasn’t hot, not in the slightest - we had just worked that hard and felt it was appropriate to posture a bit.

As for my favorite memory in Virginia – well, mine was more of a moment, a ephemeral shift in perception. The night before visiting RVHR, Tim and I had stayed with Chuck and Cheryl, old friends of the Malcolm family. After dinner, our gracious hosts had been so kind as to give us a tour of the Roanoke area. We passed through the city, across train crossings, and wound our way up Mill Mountain to see the Roanoke Star. As I looked down on the city from the observation deck, it seemed my perception had pivoted around the red-white-blue structure, the lights from the city assuming the role of the blinking stars in the sky, while the sky above was flat black. It appeared that the sky had fallen in one blanketed piece, a dark sea of black interrupted by a shower of bright lights.

Or, to be less heady, I could just admit it was watching the miniature donkeys being lovingly watched by a big dun gelding as the roamed freely among the herd. They send their hellos.

Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue Inc.

P.O. Box 13

1725 Edwardsville Rd.

Hardy Va 24101

Phone and Fax: 540-721-1910